"A Committee of Correspondence"

04 January 2016

Saudi Arabia severs ties with Iran (by CP)

According to breaking news, the Saudis, in the tradition of the Rufus T. Firefly school of foreign policy, servered ties with Iran after protesters in Tehran appear to have set fire to the Saudi embassy in riots over the execution of the Saudi Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

While charges and verdict against al-Nimr probably were trumped-up, and the execution probably a deliberate Saudi provocation, it was stupid in the extreme for the Iranians to not have guarded that building better. In fact, what better to remind the US of unpeleasant common history with Iran? How dumb can one be?

After the incident, the Saudis, of all people, accuse Iran of supporting terrorism. These nasty Iranians. Clearly, the Saudis would never stoop so low. At the same time, US lawmakers, 'under the influence', try to move the goalposts and make Iranian missiles an issue, which never were part of the deal between the US and Iran, in an attempt to create an obstacle to the implementation of the deal. IMO these two - support of terrorism and the missiles - will be two dominant memes/themes in the new effort to stall implementation of the implemenation of the deal.

More, off the top of my head:

This reeks of a gut impulse on the part of the Saudis. The less than convincing performance of late by the Saudi leadership team King Salman & Prince "Reckless" Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud doesn't suggest much of a plan.

i.e. there is a clear Saudi-Turkish-Israeli anti-Shia Iran axis emerging.

The Saudis probably will use the 'phantom Shia menace' to justify further and increased repression of the Shia in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi logic likely goes like this: When you treat Shia like dogs, and they inexplicably resent that, that can only be because of Iranian scheming.

There is some risk for open war between Saudi-Arabia and Iran.

The Saudis or Turks, by their record, are capable of trying to 'engineer' some ambiguous incident in order to draw the US in. There are enough US vessels (or installations, like the US HQ in Bahrain) in the area for something like that.

Given the speculative nature of oil pricing, this is likely to increase the price of oil on the markets. While that would benefit Iran, and Russia, it would benefit Saudi Arabia more (given their greater market share). This is a very secondary aspect.

Comments

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The US seems more displeased with the Saudis for the mass executions than with the Iranian reaction:

"U.S. fears Saudi tensions with Iran could affect fight against ISIS

Administration officials were privately critical of the Saudis for provoking the weekend’s upheaval with the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent Saudi Shiite cleric who was arrested two years ago and sentenced to death for fomenting dissent against the ruling Sunni royal family.

“This is a dangerous game they are playing,” said a U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about U.S.-Saudi relations. “There are larger repercussions than just the reaction to these executions,” including damage to “counter-ISIL initiatives as well as the Syrian peace process.”"

CP
It will be interesting to see what exactly how KSA & Turkey step up the support of ISIL . IMO the ground is shifting strategically against the Liver Eaters & their erstwhile supporters. I believe further that we will see more cooperation between the US & Russia & EU to bring about the real political solution to Syria- the one that leaves Assad in power & the Liver Eaters , Ankara, & Riyahd further isolated . Further I believe that if push came to shove with KSA & Iran that Turkey if it gets involved in that shooting war will face a very resolute Russia - after all in this context Iran would be in Putim's mind his Near Abroad .

I think that these executions are more about internal House of Saud politicking rather than a direct attack or message to Iran. Yes, the secondary effect is to rile the Iranians but its more important for this Boy Prince to establish his anti-Shia credentials against all of his internal opponents in the ruling family.

The prince is currently losing in Syria and losing in Yemen. This type of provocative execution is just what is needed to shore up some much needed public support.

MartinJ,
if you're right and it was just domestic polticking then Prince "Reckless" must have either not expected such a reaction in Iran or assented, approvingly (as in: billigend inkaufnehmen) to the likely consequences of the execution. That, or he is just thrashing about wildly.

He'd be bumbling on all the same.

As for the necessity for the prince to shore up his credentials, you're probably correct. The young man is well short of successes.

Beyond that, the killing of this sheik can be fairly called a state murder given the extent to which his trial was rigged and star chambered. And then some the charges ... "disobeying the ruler", "inciting sectarian strife" and "encouraging, leading and participating in demonstrations". There is reason for outrage.

And from a utilitarian PoV the Saudis probably have not done themselves a favour by making al-Nimr a martyr to the Shia cause.

Personally, I have considered the Saudi's to be the ultimate enemy of both the US and the Western world since 1973. Instead of fostering better relationships with these miscreants we should have toppled that government in '73 in response to the embargo. Perhaps there is a growing impetus to finally overthrow this kingdom. It certainly looks promising. Isn't a fairly substantial part of the (poor) population in these countries made up of Shia? Anyway, I agree with PL, let the slog it out together and watch from the sidelines. My money is on Iran.

Yet, the thing of it is Bahrain is not much more than a quasi Saudi province or at best a dominion state, where FP is dictated by the Saudi who have propped up the regime and oppressed majority Shia opposition using troops they sent into Bahrain a few tears ago. So counting Bahrain separately is a double count of sorts. Anyway the UAE, on cue has also downgraded diplomatic relations with Iran as well.

“it was stupid in the extreme for the Iranians to not have guarded that building better.”

Cp

My understanding is that they needed to let some of the steam out ( I think pre-election cost benefit was calculated in reducing hardliner’ pressure)) , if not it will blow out the cap. It is many years since the Sunnis, are blowing up Shia all over ME on daily bases, it is the Shia top clerics who are keeping a leash on their constituencies to not retaliate in kind, or this thing will be moved to an open street level sectorial war. That’s what the Saudis want and have been paying for all these years, that was the reason for the execution after Syria and nuclear talks. My take is Iranians knew this was a tool to be used and they were very ready for it.

Kooshy,
whatever domestic goals Iran was or wasn't pursuant of, Iran is obliged under international law to protect embassies from that sort of violence. As the ICJ put it in the case of US Diplomatic and Consular Staff in Tehran:

"[t]here is no more fundamental prerequisite for the conduct of relations between States than the inviolability of diplomatic envoys and embassies ..."

Article 22(2) of the Vienna Conventions is explicit and clear on that point as well:

"2.The receiving State is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its dignity."

Even so, the duty is one of effort, not result. If they protected the embassy appropriately, and the damage occured anyway, the Iranians were compliant.

The Saudis appear uninterested in this and assume Iranian government authorship, likely for histrionics and reasons of momentary expediency.

The bad part is, given Iranian politics and their history of actions against embassies, the Saudi assertion is at least plausible and may be right. Not that that absolved the Saudis from any of their own dumb actions.

There are about 15 % shia in KSA,roughly 4 millions, mostly poors and in the East and that where some major Oill fields are.

73 embargo was largely a comedy KSA had previously agreed on the petro-dollar substitution for the gold-dollar (71 +) against renewed support from USA: providing (selling) arms and accepting KSA investments in US (specialy buying Tresor bonds). The greatest achievment of Kissinger, I must say.

What is the likelihood that the US would begin to pivot away from KSA and towards Iran? Certainly the nuclear deal would indicate a desire. A war between SA and Iran will certainly also provide provide for the destruction of the military hardware the Saudi's have acquired, which seems to be a requisite occurrence when alliances are changed.

Not that Russia or China would risk a nuclear war for the Iranians either, but other than Pakistan is there any nuclear power that would put its finger on KSA should the USA decide the Saudis have overstepped their bounds?

Now that the holidays are over, work on the Syria peace process will ramp up again in preparation for the next big meeting (supposed to happen in just 3 weeks). The Riyadh conference was supposed to produce a strong rebel opposition team and it was celebrated but most people whose opinion I respect thought it was a big failure.

So they don't have much to bring to the table from that angle and the progress by the R4+1+? coalition looks really strong at the moment which means they don't have as much as they would like to bring to the table from that angle either. The clock is ticking. They can refuse to agree on the list of terrorists or refuse to show up at the table but presumably some rebel groups will show up. Would Lavrov & Kerry try to go forward with the groups who do show up? I think the Saudis, Turks and Israelis are desperate to derail the talks and that is the major factor in the latest provocation.

The combination of derailing a peace process and pounding a neighbor with bombs also just seems very familiar, like the kind of strategy one of KSA's strange bedfellow allies (plus the neocons) would advise. I've seen the comments on social media from people in Yemen about renewed bombardment in Sana'a over the past few days. One person said it was the worst since early Sept. I've also seen some comments by apparent KSA shills saying the peace process is doomed, doomed.

It seems like someone might want to create reasons why some more Hezbollah and/or Iranian guard are needed at home because of the flare ups, heightened threat and therefore leave the battlefield in Syria.

Anyway, for what it's worth, those are my recent observations and thoughts. That list of factors by Col Lang was great, really clarifying.

If I may give my opinion: I think a "pivot from KSA and towards Iran" would be like doing the 2nd step before the 1st. The first step would be something like an even distance approach, or like so-called realists may call it: offshore balancing. Applying a strategy of "offshore balancing" regarding Iran and Saudi Arabia seems to have for quite some time now some influental proponents in the US:

CP
I thought more violent protest (against KSA) would have come out of Lebanon, since is less expensive there, using proxies, besides Saudis couldn’t afford to close embassy there, but I think Syed Nasrollah didn’t. go for that. Considering the circumstances.

Babak
Farda News is an outlet on the side of reformers ( specifically Rafsanjani clan), what would you expect they write up. What would you think what the conservatives demands are, and how to contain it, when there is an election coming up. I think the report is correct that they let them make some seen ( apparently the embassy was empty and no one got injured) and then arrest 40, and condemn the attack and the mobs. That is the reason I think it was a calculated pressure release.